Computer-Aided Formulation of Magnetic Pastes for Composition Improvement for Power Magnetics

The size of magnetic components can be reduced with novel designs, but the intricate structures are difficult to make due to the limited sets of conventional magnetic core geometries and materials. Magnetic pastes have the flexibility of forming complicated structures with a pressure-less and low-temperature molding process, and are ideal for making the novel magnetic designs. The conventional approach of developing magnetic pastes involves time-consuming experimental iterations to determine the optimal composition parameters. Instead of relying on the trial-and-error efforts, we explored a computer-aided approach to guiding the magnetic paste development by creating material's microstructure by discrete element method (DEM) and studying the property by finite element method (FEM). From a starting formula with two different-sized spherical powders, we improved the composition guided by DEM and FEM, and studied the magnetic permeability versus two variables: powder mixing ratio and magnetic volume fraction. The simulated permeability agreed well with the experimental data with an average error of only 10%. With the computer-aided formulation methodology demonstrated in this work, one can develop magnetic pastes with minimum experimental efforts and explore different compositions to meet various magnetic design needs.

Automated summary

The development of magnetic pastes is a complex and time-consuming task, but a computer-aided approach can simplify the process and provide simulation results that match well with experimental data.